Psychologists Help People Learn

DR. SYLVIA ROSENFIELD
is a school psychologist, a university professor, and a consultant.

A school psychologist has one of the most varied jobs I know of. I am currently a professor in the school psychology program at the University of Maryland in College Park. During my career, I have also been a school psychologist in Madison, Wisconsin, and worked with public schools in several states. I've been a faculty member at Fordham University in New York and at Temple University in Pennsylvania. And I've had the opportunity to work with state education departments and with school systems around the country. (If you like to travel, psychology isn't a bad career!) My doctorate is in educational psychology, with a specialty in school psychology.

It is important to me to be out of the university occasionally and go into the public schools. For example, I am working with the Howard County (Maryland) school system to change the way schools work with children who have learning and behavior problems.

Students who come into the graduate program in school psychology have usually gained an understanding about human behavior and about the way people interact with their environments from their undergraduate psychology courses. Graduate courses in school psychology provide advanced study on applying research findings in the real world, so you can help teachers, school administrators, and parents understand how children learn, develop, and are motivated.

One of the courses I teach is on consultation skills, taken in the second year of our graduate program in school psychology. Students spend a whole year working with teachers on solving problems in the classroom. Each week the student and I listen to tapes of those discussions to make certain that the student is acquiring the skills critical to a school psychologist.

I can remember when computers were in basements of huge university buildings. Now they're in many classrooms and most schools. We're using them to keep track of information about children and their academic achievements. Also, we use them to get information. For example, if you have a child with a particular kind of problem in one school, you can use a computer network to find information about this type of problem or to talk to psychologists in other places through email and computer bulletin boards.

School psychology is one of the oldest areas of applied psychology. It's based on the scientific-practitioner model, which means that our practice has a scientific base and we use the scientific method in our work. There is a school psychologist in almost every school in America. And that's one of the real contributions psychology is making to American children.

We apply what we know—about learning, instruction, motivation, growth and development, and interpersonal relationships—in the school setting. We work with adults and children, so we have to have good interpersonal skills, as well. The school psychologist can help create healthy environments where children and youth can flourish.

Everybody has spent a large part of his/her life in school. But when you come back as a school psychologist, you see the schools in a new way. You have the opportunity to find ways to make them better places for children and for teachers.

DR. MIGUEL YBARRA
is a counseling psychologist and a university professor.

There are many different ways to come into the field of psychology, but the best way is to understand what your strengths are and what it is you want to accomplish. In my case, I started my academic career as a music major (piano/performance). One of my professors helped me see that my strengths, however, were in another area. I decided that there had to be a better fit for me in a different place. One day I suddenly recognized the fact that people often came to me to talk things out. I felt I had a natural ability to help people see the options that were before them. It was at that moment that I decided to explore what I could get out of (and offer) the field of psychology.

An intimidating prospect that would be required of me, however, was having to master statistics and research methodology. In fact, the very idea of having to learn this material was so frightening that I almost decided not apply to graduate school at all! The best part of graduate school, however, was that once I started learning the material, it made sense because these “skills” had a real-life application. They became tools that I would use in actually providing the services for which I was training. This was the “best part” of my academic experience because the very thing that almost kept me out of a graduate program became the means to achieve my goals.

During my coursework in counseling psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I was fortunate enough to work with one of my professors and participate in a study he was directing. The design of this inquiry was to help us learn about the various coping strategies middle school students who live and interact in a multicultural environment use. In other words, we wanted to learn what students do to reduce stress when they are in a setting that is culturally diverse. This experience became even more important to me when I realized that we were also searching for ways to get our findings back to the community that was participating in the study. With great enthusiasm, we presented our findings to the parents and teachers of these students at an open meeting.

Through all of this, I learned that the need for psychologists to bring cross-cultural considerations and multicultural competency to their work is increasing daily because of the changing cultural and ethnic composition of our country. As members of the larger and increasingly diverse society, we need to meet the needs of people from different backgrounds and communities, thus allowing them to build on their strengths. Also, let us not forget the role of language. We must understand the context from which language (and behavior) emanates in order to be successful psychologists, whether we are conducting research, teaching, or providing therapy.

As the field of psychology evolves, we continue to realize how important it is to be inclusive of diversity in terms of ethnicity, culture, gender, sexual orientation, and age (to name just a few). Personally, it is important to me to contribute not only to the field of psychology and to society, but also to my community. I am currently in my second year of teaching in the Counseling Program at Barry University in Miami Shores, FL. In the future, I see myself continuing to help students become quality researchers and educators.

I also will continue to give back to the community from which I come; that is, by helping other Latinos/Chicanos, like me, achieve their goals.

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